"For what?" Vikram grunted, affecting a look of disdain.

"To fight."

"You lie. Like the posturing peacock you are."

Khalid's eyebrows rose. "I never lie."

"A lie." The Rajput's mustache twitched, his gaze dark.

"Never . . . is perhaps the wrong word."

"Seldom is better."

"Seldom, then." Khalid offered him the hint of a smile.

Vikram exhaled, smoothing his right hand across his short beard. "I cannot fight anymore, meraa dost." It was a difficult admission. His eyes closed for an instant.

"Now that is a lie," Khalid said without hesitation. "The faqir told me your shoulder would heal in time. It may not return to what-"

"I cannot feel anything in my left hand."

Truly, Khalid hated surprises. With the fire of a thousand suns, he abhorred them.

His gaze drifted to Vikram's left hand, lying prone atop the linen sheets. It looked the same as always. Merciless. Inveterate. Invulnerable.

Yet not.

He knew words of reassurance were unnecessary. Vikram was not a fool, nor was he in need of coddling. Nevertheless, Khalid could not ignore his inclination to state the obvious.

"It is too soon to pass judgment on the matter." He refrained from speaking in a gentle tone, for he knew Vikram would despise it. "Feeling may return to your hand in time."

"Even if it does, I will never fight as I once did." There was no sentiment behind the response. Just a simple statement of fact.

Despina shifted in her seat-the second sign of discomfort Khalid had seen from the handmaiden since his arrival.

Though this puzzled him, Khalid granted Vikram's words their requisite consideration. "Again, it is too soon to pass judgment on the matter."

"That whelp used obsidian arrowheads." Vikram's fury cut dark fissures across his forehead and deep valleys down the sides of his face. "They shattered the bones. Beyond repair."

Despite his wish to fan the flames, Khalid tamped down his ire. It would serve no purpose to fuel rage. Instead his features fell into a mask of false composure. A mask he wore well.

"I heard as much."

"I cannot serve as your bodyguard with only one good arm," Vikram ground out in pointed fashion.

"I disagree."

"As I knew you would." He frowned. "But it matters not, meraa dost."

"And why is that?" Khalid said.

Again, the handmaiden shifted in her seat.

Vikram eased farther into his pillows, the edges of his expression smoothing. "Because I will not be less than what I am. And you will not force me to be less." He did not even bother to challenge Khalid with his unyielding stare.

"What is it you need of me, my friend?" Khalid repeated his earlier query, though it sounded entirely different now.

The Rajput paused. "I wish to leave the city. To start a life of my own."

"Of course." Khalid nodded. "Whatever you need."

"And to take a wife."

More surprises. Would it never end?

"Is there someone you have in mind?" Khalid's expression remained careful. Controlled.

Vikram leveled an almost mocking gaze at his king. Then his features shifted slowly to the pouting butterfly at his bedside.

To Khalid's best spy.

Apparently, Khalid's abhorred surprises were only beginning.

Try as he might, Khalid could not hide the look of disbelief etching its way across his face. "And are you amenable to this marriage?" he asked the handmaiden in a voice barely above a whisper.

When her pretty lips started to pucker into an amused moue and her eyes began to shimmer like wells full of unshared secrets, it took all of Khalid's willpower not to lose his temper and turn from the room in a mindless rage.

"Very well, then. Far be it from me to understand the machinations of love." Khalid shook his head, banishing all evidence of his incredulity. "Is there anything else?"

"There is . . . one thing more," the Rajput grumbled, almost as an afterthought.

Khalid waited, hoping it was not another surprise.

"Despite my choice of a wife,"-the warrior eyed his future bride, who returned his look with a knowing smile-"I do not wish to become the subject of rumors."

"I understand," Khalid replied. "I will not discuss these matters with anyone. You have my word."

Vikram nodded curtly. "We will depart in two days. After that, all else is in the hands of the gods."

A sudden pang of loss shot through Khalid. He was not bothered by its presence. Merely by its keenness. "I shall miss your company, my friend."

"A lie." Vikram coughed, his good shoulder quaking with repressed humor. "You shall be the finest swordsman in Rey. Finally."

"The finest swordsman in a fallen city," Khalid countered, holding back the beginnings of a grin. "Fitting." He looked away, rubbing a palm along his jaw.

"Meraa dost?"

It was the first hint of indecision Khalid had heard in Vikram's voice.

He glanced back at his friend.

"Are you truly not going to bring her back?" the Rajput asked.

"What's this?" Khalid finally grinned, though it was with a heavy heart. "After all your early protestations?"

"Despite all, I find I . . . miss the little troublemaker. And how she made you smile."

As did Khalid. More than he cared to admit to anyone.

"She is not safe in Rey, Vikram," Khalid said. "I am not for her."

"And the whelp is?" The lines across the Rajput's forehead returned.

Along with Khalid's simmering rage. "Perhaps. At least he can make her smile."

"And you cannot?" Vikram's eyes cut in half. Flashed like pieces of flint.

Like the obsidian in Tariq Imran al-Ziyad's bone-shattering arrowheads.

Khalid's blood pooled thick with anger. Thick with unjustifiable wrath.

After all, he had been the one to let Shazi disappear with Nasir al-Ziyad's son. He had not gone after her, as he'd first wanted to do. He had not ordered Jalal to bring her back, despite the wishes of his heart.

It had been Khalid's decision to let her go.

Because it was best she not suffer alongside him-alongside Rey-anymore.

For at what point could he reconcile his faults with his fate?

It was no longer possible.

Despite all his attempts to avoid his destiny, it had found its way to him. Had slashed its way across his city. Set fire to all he held dear.

And he could not watch Shahrzad burn with him.

He would burn alone-again and again-before he would ever watch such a thing.

"I cannot make her smile," Khalid said. "Not anymore."

The Rajput ran his hand through his beard, lingering in contemplation.

"It is too soon to pass judgment on the matter."

Khalid bowed deeply, touching his fingertips to his brow. "I wish you happiness, Vikram Singh."

"And I you, meraa dost-my greatest friend."

NOT A SINGLE DROP.

CUT THE STRINGS, SHAZI. FLY."

The words were whispers in her ears, carried on the air like a secret summoning.

"Fly."

Shahrzad sat in the center of her tent, ignoring the commotion outside. Sounds of the newest contingent of soldiers arriving in camp. Sounds of impending war. Instead she focused on the dusty ground, her knees bent and her feet crossed at the ankles.

Before her lay the ugliest carpet in all of creation.

Rust colored, with a border of dark blue and a center medallion of black-and-white scrollwork. Fringed on two sides by yellowed, woebegone tassels. Seared in two corners.

A rug with a story of its own . . .

Albeit a small one. It was barely large enough to hold two people, sitting side by side.

Shahrzad canted her head in contemplation. Took a measured breath. Then she pressed the flat of her hand to the rug's surface.

A prickly feeling, like that of losing sensation in a limb, settled around her heart. It warmed through her blood, spreading into her fingertips.

Though she knew what to expect, it still took her by surprise when a corner of the carpet curled into her hand.

She removed her palm and swallowed. The rug fell flat.

"Cut the strings, you goose. Did you swallow your ears just now, along with your nerve?"

"I heard you the first thousand times, you rat!" With a small grin for Shiva's memory, Shahrzad reached for an empty tumbler and the pitcher of water on the low table nearby. Catching her tongue between her teeth, she filled the tumbler halfway and placed it within the center medallion of the ugliest carpet in all of creation.

"Now for the true test," she muttered.

Shahrzad returned her palm to the carpet. Just as before, the strange feeling unfurled around her heart before tingling down her arm. The edges of the rug bowed in on themselves, then the rug took to the air. Soon, there was nothing beneath it but empty space. She lifted onto her knees, moving with caution. The tumbler had not stirred from within the medallion; not a single drop of water had spilt. Exhaling through her nose, Shahrzad floated her fingers to the right. The rug followed along at shoulder level, the water's surface as calm as an unruffled lake.

Shahrzad decided to take the enterprise a step further.

She stood without warning, her hand spiking toward the steepled ceiling of the tent. Shahrzad expected the carpet to careen out of control, but-though it lifted in the mere blink of an eye-it refused to be buffeted about on such a graceless tide. Instead, it rippled as though it were under the spell of the lightest of breezes. Trailing her fingertips, it rose above her head-a series of small waves upon an invisible shore-before spiraling back to the ground at her command. She repeated the motions twice. Up. Down. And back again. Not once did the carpet break contact with her skin. Not once did it lose control. It bore the cup as its weightless passenger, from ceiling to floor like clouds upon the air.

The most Shahrzad ever saw was the water loll from brim to brim, never spilling, simply swirling about, as though it were dancing to a languorous music it alone could hear.

Her eyes wide, she let the magic carpet circle back to the earth.

In her ears, the voice of her best friend-the voice behind the secret summoning-began to laugh, lyrically, beautifully.

Teasingly.

Your turn, you goose.

Shahrzad smiled to herself. Tomorrow night she would test the magic carpet again.

Without the tumbler.